Solarpunk

Source

Time and place

19th-26th of August 2025, first two-three days are buildup.

Podebłocie 100km south from Warsaw, Poland.

what is solpunk?

Solpunk is a gathering for anyone interested in creating anything solarpunk with others!

What does that actually mean? Is it an un-conference? Is it a festival? Is it just some punks in a field? A wise guess is that people here are interested in many of the following things:

Lowtech and community tech, energy reduction and renewables, sharing resources, temporary nomadic community, dancing, alternative economy, creating a just future, hackathons, dumpster diving, opensource hardware, software and production, means of care and solidarity, community

A Solarpunk Compass

https://corvodsx.any.org/a-solarpunk-compass

#blog #en #solarpunk #ecology

@solarpunk

The current model for funding advancements in tech in the 21st century is: quantitative easing-doped venture capital hungry for investments -> startup uses initial money to make actual tech advancement (this is the good bit) -> hypes up idea, does IPO -> ideally market monopolization and vendor lock-in -> which allows them to enshittify and extract arbitrary rent from both the supplier and consumer side of their user base and return money to the investors, for ever.

The fact that this funding model applies to tech in general is demonstrated by the broad range of fields where it has been used:

• for software, things like Figma or Medium
• for hardware, things like the Juicero (a great example of how venture capital values trendiness (juicero was wifi-connected, required an app, god forbid if AI existed at the time) over real-world utility (the juice capsules could be opened by hand))
• for biotech, things like GMO golden rice, where Monsanto disabled propagation so that farmers would have to come back to them for seeds (that's not exactly what happened, but I'm trying to make a point).

The obvious alternative to this is touted to be open source, ie. people making things for free and sharing it with others.

Unfortunately, the amount of things you can achieve for free, possibly relying on donations, is very limited. If you want to become a serious business, you need a serious funding model. I am convinced that the choice between open source and the Sillicon Valey model is a false dichotomy, and other ways of funding advancements in tech must exist (after all, the Sillicon Valey model has not always been the modus operandi).

Are there any hybrid business models for funding tech developments, that eg. even allow the developed tech to be open source? Has any research been done into the design of novell funding models?

I started a local vibecoders group because I think it has the potential to help my community.

(What is vibecoding? It's a new word, coined last month. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding)

Why might it be part of a solarpunk future? I often see and am inspired by solarpunk art that depicts relationships and family happiness set inside a beautiful blend of natural and technological wonder. A mom working on her hydroponic garden as the kids play. Friends chatting as they look at a green cityscape.

All of these visions have what I would call a 3-way harmony--harmony between humankind and itself, between humankind and nature, and between nature and technology.

But how is this harmony achieved? Do the "non-techies" live inside a hellscape of technology that other people have created? No! At least, I sure don't believe in that vision. We need to be in control of our technology, able to craft it, change it, adjust it to our circumstances. Like gardening, but with technology.

I think vibecoding is a whisper of a beginning in this direction.

Right now, the capital requirements to build software are extremely high--imagine what Meta paid to have Instagram developed, for instance. It's probably in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. It's likely that only corporations can afford to build this type of software--local communities are priced out.

But imagine if everyone could (vibe)code, at least to some degree. What if you could build just the habit-tracking app you need, in under an hour? What if you didn't need to be an Open Source software wizard to mold an existing app into the app you actually want?

Having AI help us build software drops the capital requirements of software development from millions of dollars to thousands, maybe even hundreds. It's possible (for me, at least) to imagine a future of participative software development--where the digital rules of our lives are our own, fashioned individually and collectively. Not necessarily by tech wizards and esoteric capitalists, but by all of us.

Vibecoding isn't quite there yet--we aren't quite to the Star Trek computer just yet. I don't want to oversell it and promise the moon. But I think we're at the beginning of a shift, and I look forward to exploring it.

P.S. If you want to try vibecoding out, I recommend v0 among all the tools I've played with. It has the most accurate results with the least pain and frustration for now. Hopefully we'll see lots of alternatives and especially open source options crop up soon.

Do you know the "Future Histories" podcast? It aims to expand our concept of the future by discussing a broad range of themes like alternatives to capitalism, degrowth, commons, cybernetics and much more. In every episode the host Jan Groos talks to interesting guests, who are activists, scholars or experts on their fields. I linked one of the recent episodes but I would recommend to check them all out. Sadly many episode are in german, but you can find the English episodes by searching for "Future Histories International".

On this server we are often victim of this stuff, i hope we can all improve

Are you an introvert but still want to make a difference?

Do you like talking to persons but hate talking to people?

Do you want to join community but hate the idea of meeting with community?

Here's a fun thing to do:

• Print zines (little how-to and educational pamphlets).
• Put zines in little free libraries!

Here's a place to download zines for free: https://www.sproutdistro.com/

Edit: Adding @CrimethInc as well: https://crimethinc.com/library

Here's a how-to on how to make and put together zines (cheers @susankayequinn )

https://susankayequinn.com/how-to-write-solarpunk-zine

Here's a place to find all the little free libraries in your neighborhood: https://littlefreelibrary.org/map/

Here's the FAQ from Little Free Libraries regarding donating any books or material that may be considered controversial (dive in and read their take on Banned Books! Oooooh!): https://littlefreelibrary.org/faqs/#45820

Do you have any other sources for zines that you like? Post them below.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #libraries #littleFreeLibraries

Nice video with solar punk-y vibes, might be interesting to someone else. :)

Work is under way to create a mine water heating system which will supply hundreds of homes.

Water from disused mines will eventually be used to heat houses in a new community near Seaham in County Durham.

Half the 1,500 homes on the Seaham Garden Village development, which will be built over the next 10 years, will be heated through an ultra-low carbon district heat network.

Councillor Mark Wilkes, Durham County Council cabinet member for neighbourhoods and climate change, said the project will have "significant environmental benefits".

Water is extracted from former coal workings to protect the groundwater aquifer which provides drinking water to households.

This water is extracted and treated to remove heavy metals before being discharged out to sea.

The heat in the water currently dissipates into the atmosphere but, under the new project, it will instead feed into the heat network.

Miners' legacy Durham County Council, the MRA and Karbon Homes are working together on the scheme to heat 750 affordable homes at Seaham Garden Village, with Vital Energi designing, building and operating the heat network.

The mine water project has received £4.3m from the government's Heat Networks Investment Project, including £3.23m towards construction.

Wilkes said the mine water will be "there for the long-term, for decades".

"If you think about oil and gas, these are finite resources that are coming from overseas," he said.

"This is right here in County Durham. It's that legacy from all of those people who worked in the mines."

My brother pointed out to me that in last week's episode of his podcast, Ezra Klein namechecked solarpunk in a blink-and-you-miss it mention:

“One common argument I heard on the left - Lina Khan made this point actually in our pages - was that this proved our whole paradigm of AI development was wrong. That we were seeing that we did not need all this compute, we did not need these giant companies, that this was showing a way towards a decentralized, almost solarpunk version of AI development, and in a sense the American system and imagination had been captured by, like, these three big companies.”

The context isn't as interesting as the quote. He was talking about different approaches to developing strong AI. It's only interesting because he used the term "solarpunk" in such a casual manner in a discussion that wasn't about solarpunk or even fiction. It reveals that it's in his vocabulary, and that he's ingesting this in his media diet. For those who don't know Klein, he's a very popular writer and journalist whose politics roughly resemble a quieter version of Elizabeth Warren's.

After hearing this, the thought occurred to me that what I'm witnessing is an idea spreading from a fringe group into a mainstream concept. Eventually, if it gets big enough with mainstream progressive liberals like Klein, I bet it'll one day get discovered and made into a boogieman on the right.

I wonder how long that will take? When is the first time I'll hear a clip of like, I dunno, Ben Shapiro shouting, 'Have you heard about this new thing they call SOLARPUNK???!? It's crazy! It's like... imagine a cyberpunk dystopia: but they want THAT with like, vines and TRANS PEOPLE everywhere! Some ruthless Soviet dictatorship but without even the cool cars or wonderful corporate innovation! It's just TRAINS and GARDENS instead! Ulgh!! [eyes bugging out for the thumbnail image]'

That might be interesting. I think that this idea has a viral quality, so perhaps I can look forward to that in 2025 or 2026. What do you folks think?

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/122308

Indigenous futures thinking brings the expertise built up by Indigenous communities over many years into the plans needed for the world to adapt to climate change.